Barring the nitpickers who exist to unearth faults and shortcomings, the consensus within India is that the two-day G20 Summit in Delhi passed off with clockwork precision. There may have been a few behind-the-scenes hiccups, but these were so insignificant and out of gaze of the guests as to not matter. The people of India can look back at the biggest international gathering of world leaders in its post-Independence history as an event very well done.
Since most of the domestic audience in India — as with domestic audiences anywhere in the world — is scarcely interested in weighty, consensual declarations of world leaders, it is likely that the countless hours spent by the G20 sherpas preparing an acceptable document will go unappreciated. The divergent positions on the seemingly interminable war between Russia and Ukraine may interest the so-called strategic community that earns air miles by flying between international seminars, but it is considered a dreary bore within India. It is interesting that even the few hours devoted to discussing the conflict in Ukraine in the Indian Parliament were not centred on the rights and wrongs of Vladimir Putin. To the extent members of Parliament were interested, it was because of the many thousands of Indian students that had flocked to Ukraine in search of cut-price medical degrees from a European institution. Once the rescue of these stranded students had been successfully and efficiently completed, the overall Indian interest in the conflict ended quite abruptly. At best, there was bipartisan support for the Narendra Modi government’s determined insistence that it wouldn’t succumb to Western pressure to not purchase Russian oil and gas.
From a domestic perspective, there were two points of interest with the G20 Summit.
First, there was interest over the arrangements made by the Indian hosts for the 30 or so jumbo-sized delegations, not to mention the media contingents, that come with the world leaders. The last occasion India had hosted an international gathering on a large scale was the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010 during the prime ministership of Manmohan Singh. Unfortunately, the event was mired in controversy and scandal and had it not been for the last-minute purposeful intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office, interventions that naturally involved a huge cost overrun, the Games would have been a colossal disaster. That it has taken another 13 years to host another mammoth international event suggests that the legacy of the Commonwealth Games was truly devastating.
The Modi government has passed the bandobast test with flying colours. The construction of the grand Bharat Mandapam in which the Summit was held at the erstwhile Pragati Maidan premises drew some initial flak from Congress and Left-inclined aesthetes because it involved the demolition of a pavilion building designed by Raj Rewal. The objections belonged to the same league as the contrived outrage over the Central Vista and the construction of the new Parliament building. Although the final verdict on the new Parliament must await a few more days when the special session moves to the new premises, the remodelling and the upgradation of the stretch from the newly-installed statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to the foot of Raisina Hill have already received a thumbs-up. Those who had earlier compared Modi’s plans to the fantasy world Hitler had sought to create in Berlin have fallen silent.
Maybe they would have been far more vocal had the Delhi improvements — which include those purpose-built for the G20 Summit — smelt even remotely of graft. It is to the credit of the Modi government that projects of such scale and magnitude have been completed in time without even the faintest whiff of scandal. It signifies a big change in the work culture associated with the government. Equally important, it suggests that the political culture can also undergo a big, positive change.
The second domestic interest in an event such as the G20 centred on celebrity watching. Whether in India or elsewhere, ordinary people always have a vicarious pleasure in seeing celebrities across the world in surroundings they are themselves familiar with.
The impact, for example, of a British prime minister of Indian origin proudly and unapologetically flaunting his Hindu credentials while offering morning worship at the Swaminarayan temple in Delhi is certain to be incalculable. Apart from presenting Britain in a new light to India, Rishi Sunak sent out a powerful message to a slice of contemporary India: that there is no conflict between modernity and Hindu traditions. This is a message that Modi has also tried to convey, albeit with a different packaging, but it is likely to get a boost with images of Sunak and his very Indian wife in a temple and — this is equally significant — the Isro scientists praying in Hindu temples after the successful completion of Chandrayaan-3.
One of the features of the Indian hospitality during G20 was that traditional and modern Indian symbols were always brought to the fore. Indian politicians no longer wear a suit and tie while attending international gatherings at home or overseas. Weather permitting, they are far more likely to be seen in a waistcoat (described variously as Nehru jacket or Modi jacket) and, for women, in a saree. In the G20 banquets, the hosts mercifully dispensed with the sarkari banquet catering menu (which hasn’t changed since the 1960s) and outsourced the arrangements to well-known Indian chefs. The result was that Indian cuisine with a contemporary touch was showcased to the world. There is certain to be a multiplier effect of this millet diplomacy domestically.
The final significant feature of the series of G20 events that have been taking place over the past six months is that they have not been confined to the national capital. The rest of India has often complained that Delhi has the habit of hogging all the attention that belongs to the whole of India. Modi has tried to consciously spread out events all over India and the G20 was a perfect example of all the states, including the former state, Jammu and Kashmir, getting an opportunity to host meetings. The resulting improvement in local infrastructure is a small spin-off. More important was the sense of involvement. It is this that will pay political returns in 2024.
